Another Rant on the overall game

This is the first time I ever wrote a topic ranting about a game. I will not complain about game breaking bugs, and the combat system, but rather the role playing aspect.
I played the whole main storyline before reaching the conclusion that I didn’t like this game. This was the first game that interested me to the point of following the development from the beginning, but in the end it was such a disappointment. Maybe I missed something towards the end of the development, but I had the idea that this game was designed to be a very realistic and immersive RPG in middle age Bohemia, that you would control a no name guy, and that the storyline would carry on regardless of your participation. I stopped following the devs when the released date kept delaying due to problems in the programming (due to complex combat I think). I was a bit disappointed to find that there was no character creation, that you were forced to play someone with a backstory, but I went with it. Then it puzzled me to find that, if you would like to really immerse yourself in the story, you had a tight timeline to do the quests. For instance, when you get to neuhof, it was just the night before that the attack happened. When you find Limpy Lubosh, he had just been found dead by the local baillif. Of course you could spend weeks doing sidequests in the meantime and nothing would change, but it would feel artificial and non-immersive to do so when things kept happening in such an intense way. Even in the last quest, I felt that there was no time to lose after scouting the cumans camp, as it felt like they were preparing for an attack at any time. Maybe it was just my perception. But it was very disappointing to find that if you would just carry on doing the main quest, you’d never reach the necessary level to beat Runt. Oh no, you must “waste” time doing fetch quests for a random marriage or whatever, when there are people being attack by a random gang that likes to kill for no reason. And there is no way you can role play as a rogue or pacifist, or anything other than a melee fighter, because the game forces you to fight a badass giant with a two-handed sword that has been killing people for ages on a one-on-one fight. Nevermind if you have been killing bandits from afar with your bow, or sneaking into their camps at night and slitting their throats. All that experience is useless (unless you exploit the not-very-immersive bow trick at the end). If I’m a guy that has learned to swing a sword only two weeks ago, why would want to fight this guy on a one-on-one combat? How immersive is this? Couldn’t I just put a poisoned arrow in his arse when he is fleeing and watch him die slowly? No, because the devs force me to play with their combat system (which I hate btw).
The thing that promised the most about this game, which was roleplaying in a realistic setting, is what i believe this game failed miserably at. The idea was good, but in the end I think the game was just rushed, the quests were not very well developed, and the game ended being quite linear and bland.
Thumbs down from me, for what is worth.

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Hmmm, to shoot Runt with arrows is the easiest way to defeeat him, and many players did it in this way. Why exactly you can’t? As for being pacifist - there is even achievement for it, why do you thing you cannot be pacifist? Runt is the only enemy in whole game that you really have to kill. As for story going on without you - here you probably had too high expectations. Many things will go on without you, but others not, because … well … otherwise the story would be too much different.

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If every quest was timed the game would be crazy hard to play and nearly impossible to complete while leveling. The player would feel intensely rushed to do as much as possible and miss a lot of the enjoyable aspects of the game. Stop and smell the roses is a good way to put it.

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Maybe I focused to much on that aspect. I agree, that would be complex to develop and hard to pull. This team struggled to get the game out as is, and the result is at everyone’s sight.
What I’m complaining is that there is no freedom in choosing your playstyle, when the final boss has only one way to be beaten. No flexibility whatsoever. That is not RPGing for me.

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There are only two bosses in this game and the first is the only one you have to kill yourself in order to force people to develop their fighting skills. Do a merciful play through and you will understand this point.

That’s exactly my point. When a game boasts about being all about realism and RPGing and then forces the player to develop skills in a specific playstyle, that is just mix signals, isn’t it? I believe, and i stress this is just a personal opinion, that the devs were so proud of their groundbreaking combat mechanics that they felt that everyone should use it, or actually believed that everyone wanted to.
And on another note, the bow mechanics is just ridiculous. No matter how inexperienced you are, unless you have a serious health condition, your arm would never shake as it does in the game. I am a very amateur, self taught shooter, and i can hit the target consistently at 30 feet, drawing 3 times faster than Parkinson Henry, and in the game i struggle to hit a guy at 6 feet running towards me in a straight line.
Don’t get me wrong, I am happy I bought the game, this kind of thinking outside the baseline on rpg genre, which is quite bad currently, should be supported. I am just very disappointed how the game turned out, because it fails at what it promised: realistic role-playing.

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I agree there is too much shaking.
Is why I use the bow reticle mod and the robinhood mod partially for it’s elimination of his Parkinson’s .

For combat, it could be argued that nobles had to learn to defend themselves even if they didn’t approve of killing and the like. Of course, Sir Radzig would want his prized blacksmith’s son to have a more noble outlook on life in this respect. Also, it could be said that Henry’s specific story is about revenge which you may not like because it’s a very specific and converging type moment within the story line where you have no choice in the matter and doesn’t give a lot of role play flexibility, which I understand.

As for archery, I definitely believe archery could be much deeper with perks allowing different draw forms such as straight draw vs swing draw or a horseback stability perk, etc. That being said, these bows are supposed to be representative of bows used during combat, so they are implied to have very high draw strength such as the yew longbow requiring 14 strength. With 20 strength, agility and vitality you can hold the bow for about 10 to 15 seconds seconds so maybe it should be extended to about 20 to 30 seconds, but I’m no expert. The game also needs crossbows, for sure. All that being said, I haven’t shot a bow in many, many, many years.

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I would love to read your critique of the game but your inability to use paragraphs has rendered that impossible. If someone would please repost this using the enter key where appropriate, I’d very much appreciate it.

Nobody, regardles of strength, can in reality hold strong warbow too long. If you are shooting something like 150lbs bow, then you can hold it in full draw for one second, maybe two or three, but certainly not 20. Henry is shooting weaker bows, so those 10 seconds would be appropriate. As for shaking - in game you can aim during drawing, and then you will experience almost no shaking at all. Shaking starts after you reach full draw, and if you aimed before, then you can release almost immediatelly. But I must agree that drawing is too slow for my taste, and a bit unrealistic. I would like to have perks to shorten it.

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Maybe you need to visit a certain scribe in Uzhitz, or simply expand your literary intake outside videogame forums or instant messaging, so that reading 500 unparagraphed words doesn’t look like such a daunting task.

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I am sorry you did not enjoy the game. I have four playthroughs (some 770 hours) in the game and discover new things on each playthrough. Role playing is maybe the wrong term to use in any of the games like KCD, Fallout, Witcher or Skyrim, they are however immersive and draw you into the main character. The about of immersive is debatable, but with any game there is only so much realism that can be put into a game and still make it playable.

KCD is refreshing in that there is no magic, dragons, or ogres to deal with, just the “real life” threats of bad people, hunger and fatigue. Can the game be better? Perhaps, but improvements are made with every patch. I will say I am disappointed with the first DLC, Out of the Ashes, the trailer that was available when I purchased the DLC spoke of a more immersion in the village, settling dispute and the like, not just building a few buildings and generating coin. But that is another fact that only so much can be done and game developers can only do so much.

Sorry again that you do not like the game, but I find it fun and enjoyable. Viva la difference.

Then you never played witcher 3 Blood and Wine DLC & Hearts of Stone DLC

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Exactly. Witcher 3 was a great example of a well developed, amazingly written game. People often compare KCD with it saying it’s more of a RPG, but I can’t see how. In witcher, choices matter a lot, you can play effectively using different playstyles, albeit having to play a named character. Still, although with some flaws in the mechanics, the elder scrolls and fallout series are still what keeps RPG style alive.

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What if that someone was you?
It would certainly enlighten you as to the content.

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I have, but you also have remember that Witcher 3 DLC’s are the DLC’s and Witcher grew and developed into a better game than previous editions.

let’s call killing Runt a seminal moment. you have to kill him. but that event doesn’t define the totality of who you are and how you play the rest of the game.

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and the DLC show that better can be done .

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Yes and when KCD has been around as long as Witcher we will see great things too.

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Sadly I agree with you. For me the game looked beautiful, but set in such a restrictive environment that storyline and intrigue had to be far more exciting. As for the roleplaying, I just found myself randomly upgrading skills without much thought because it didn’t seem to make a great deal of difference, the character played much the same whatever skills you progress, and of course, becomes a knight as soon as you don that plate. A nice knighting ceremony would have been far better.